Firefly

MalachiConstant · Post by **MalachiConstant** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 4:02 pm

I just bought the complete series DVD of Firefly this weekend. I never saw it on TV, and I'm baffled that Fox seemed so determined to screw the show over. They aired episodes in a random order and never even aired the two hour pilot till the show was cancelled. They didn't even air three of the finished 14 episodes!

It really was a different style of sci-fi than I've ever seen on TV. And shockingly it's actually intelligent. There's no sound in space, there's no force fields, cargo ships aren't armed with laser guns. During one show they had to shoot something in space, so they put on space suits, opened the cargo doors and shot it with a gun, which had to be put inside a space suit since it needed oxygen to fire.

I've never seen Joss Wheadon's other shows (Buffy, Angel) but I love the way he'll play out a traditional situation, then the hero solves in the most logical manner instead of the most dramatic one. A villian is hiding behind a horse shooting at you? Shoot the horse. A tied-up henchman promises to hunt you down after he returns to his boss? Kick him into the ships engine and deal with a different henchman.

The dialog was great too. Futuristic space-talk delivered with an old west dialect and chinese swear words. It seemed like a strange mix between Robert Heinlein's "Tunnel In The Sky" and the british show "Blakes 7" with an emphasis on characters instead of technology.

They made a few concessions to reality to make the stories more interesting. Ships seem to meet in empty space rather often, and they pass by each other slowly instead of going 300,000 miles per hour. But it's such a nice change to see people behaving logically and sometimes failing rather than technobabble saving the day in every episode.

It seems like the new "Battlestar Galactica" is trying that same kind of logical approach to sci-fi. The good news (for me, anyway) is that they're making a Firefly movie. They finished shooting it already, and apparenty it's going to be released in September of this year. The creators seem very happy with how it turned out. Hopefully it will be a big enough hit that they will want to restart the TV show. If Glactica is popular maybe they'll see there's an audience ready for this stlye of sci-fi.

The only thing that annoyed me was that the Alliance soldiers all wore the armor from "Starship Troopers". But they always come out looking like idiots which I see as a nice revenge on that stupid movie, at least, where the soldiers really were idiots.

john m · Post by **john m** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:03 pm

Breaking Benjamin has a song called Firefly. It fucking sucks.

The show's probably better. But I haven't seen it.

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:07 pm

Firefly's been talked about in some other thread I think; the consensus is pretty much that it kicks ass, IIRC.

I wrote a song about it myself, part of my AAD:
http://www.c-hack.com/mp3/AAD/My%20Exhi ... %20DVD.mp3

Battlestar Galactica is my favorite current dramatic show (Arrested Development being my favorite current comedy). It's really really really good.

j$ · Post by j$ » Sat Jan 29, 2005 7:28 pm

c hack wrote:Firefly's been talked about in some other thread I think; the consensus is pretty much that it kicks ass, IIRC.

I wrote a song about it myself, part of my AAD:
http://www.c-hack.com/mp3/AAD/My%20Exhi ... %20DVD.mp3

Battlestar Galactica is my favorite current dramatic show (Arrested Development being my favorite current comedy). It's really really really good.

Firefly - check! the shots I've seen of the movie are really really exciting.

Battlestar Galactica - double check! I have been rantin' and ravin' about this on and off throughout this board, and having seen the last episode of the series (suck on that, for-once-behind-the-uk tv losers) I can say is no let-down. keeps on at the same level.

I still think there's too much emphasis on sex, and the humour sits a bit uncomfortably at times, but for pure enjoyment / utterly cool design, it's untouched by any other in the sci-fi tv class. actually the closest I can compare it to is Space:Above and Beyond - war in space - but only good. Really, you should watch.

j$

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:11 pm

j$ wrote:and having seen the last episode of the series (suck on that, for-once-behind-the-uk tv losers)

You mean the last last episode? Like, the season finale?

j$ wrote:I still think there's too much emphasis on sex, and the humour sits a bit uncomfortably at times,

In Battlestar Galactica? What do you mean?

j$ · Post by j$ » Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:38 am

Yep season finale (episode 13 of the weekly series, as opposed to the three hour tv mini series. For some reason they aired it over here on cable in its entireity before showing it in the states)

Well, the 'humour' comes in from about episode 5 / 6 with one the characters (won't say which, so as not to spoil) - it makes sense, sometimes it works, sometimes it's like 'wha?' But the season finale (and especially the fantastic penultimate episode) really put it into context - so I give it overall an A- or maybe a B++ for the series. Not as good as Firefly or Buffy but better than pretty much everything else ...

J$

drë · Post by **drë** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:34 pm

MalachiConstant wrote:... During one show they had to shoot something in space, so they put on space suits, opened the cargo doors and shot it with a gun, which had to be put inside a space suit since it needed oxygen to fire...

This sounds like something Macgavier would have done, if he was stuck in outer space.

I have never been into sci-fi, but if firefly is like you have described it, I might have to check it out.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:01 pm

Fireflies was a really bad Australian soap-opera about a rural Bush Fire Brigade.

I guess your talking about a different show though...unless the show is now about a rural Bush Fire Brigade in space! - that could work...

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 9:45 pm

I love Firefly (as does Wife de la Niveous). Joss Whedon makes brilliant TV. I was so happy when it came out on DVD and even happier to hear about Serenity. Plus I was lucky enough to meet Gina Torres before she got famous and she was so incredibly nice. She deserves the success. Jewel Staite too.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:20 pm

MalachiConstant wrote:And shockingly it's actually intelligent.

and still you're not sure why Fox didn't know how to handle it?

c.layne · Post by **c.layne** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 1:00 am

i've only managed to catch the first episode, a friend of mine has the dvd box set.

but, like everyone else, i was surprised by how it was presented, and i really want to watch the rest of it.

added bonus - the girl who works on the engine is so fucking cute!

Henrietta · Post by **Henrietta** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 9:37 am

It looks like Joss is doing the Wondor Woman movie for Warner Bros., and is in postproduction for the movie "Serenity" (which is supposedly based on Firefly).

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/ ... index.html

Kamakura · Post by **Kamakura** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 5:29 pm

I've just got to the end of 'Firefly', and can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to cancel a show like this. Damn it, I want more. Now!
I guess I'll just have to wait for the 'Serenity' movie, and keep fingers crossed it'll get picked up again.

Kapitano · Post by **Kapitano** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:54 pm

Kamakura wrote:I've just got to the end of 'Firefly', and can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to cancel a show like this.

Yep. Better than Crusade would have been, IMO.

But you know, if it had continued, there would have been studio executives saying things like "What this show needs is Sexy Female Aliens" and "It's too cerebral for the advertising demographic".

Before you knew it, it would have got crap as Enterprise.

miss_jenny · Post by **miss_jenny** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:39 am

My friend watched a full sneak preview of Serenity (as a marketing test). He had all good things to say- he even wants to see it again when it's released (for real) in September. Also, it has the same cast lineup as Firefly. So, yay good news!

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:49 am

So my friend loaned us the DVD set of Firefly... it's awesome, we've watched 6 or so episodes already. Looking forward to the movie. Don't think we'll get through the whole series before it comes out, so hopefully it does well enough that we can still catch it in the theater.
-bill

stueym · Post by **stueym** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 12:04 pm

HeuristicsInc wrote:So my friend loaned us the DVD set of Firefly... it's awesome, we've watched 6 or so episodes already. Looking forward to the movie. Don't think we'll get through the whole series before it comes out, so hopefully it does well enough that we can still catch it in the theater.
-bill

So excited...watched this first run on Fox in HD and then bought the DVD's for my son last xmas. Sooooo looking forward to the movie

the Jazz · Post by **the Jazz** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:49 pm

Holy crap this was the most satisfying SF television series I've seen in years. And:

c.layne wrote:added bonus - the girl who works on the engine is so fucking cute!

YES.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:39 pm

There's a Firefly documentary on DVD called "Done The Impossible: The Fans' Tale of Firefly & Serenity". One interesting fact is that the soundtrack includes songfighter Dan Sehane.

http://www.amazon.com/Done-Impossible-F ... UTF8&s=dvd

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